OPINION: Postal Survey – It Could Have All Been For Nothing?

As the LGBTI community prepares for the November 15 announcement of the same-sex marriage postal plebiscite, concerns are being raised over the legitimacy of the plebiscite and the future of the legalisation of same-sex marriage before Christmas as promised, if the ‘Yes’ vote wins, by Malcolm Turnbull.

After a failed bipartisanship agreement between Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, the Liberal government remains in turmoil over the dual citizenship saga, if the situation gets worse and they lose the balance of power, effectively we would have an illegitimate government, which means at worst, anything that the government has done since elected could be challenged and revoked.

This could include the postal survey, if the decision to have the postal plebiscite is found unconstitutional due to illegitimate members of parliament making the decision it could be scrapped altogether and would be a colossal waste of $122 million. and at worst if the citizenship mess is not cleaned up quickly and it is found more senators hold dual citizenship after a ‘Yes’ victory and the legalisation of same-sex marriage, all we’ve been through for the past few months will have been for nothing.

It’s rare to agree with Senator Corey Bernardii, but he may be right with delaying same-sex marriage in order for the government to get their shit together.

An alternate look at the citizenship saga is that with the strong chance that the Liberal party could potentially lose government, it is my understanding Labor would then be appointed as a caretaker government making Bill Shorten temporary Prime Minister until the next election which cannot be held until October next year at the earliest. This could a win for the LGBTI community, however with speculated dual citizenship issues from within the Labor party, there is little to no chance we’d expect to see same-sex marriage legalised within the first 100 days of a Labor government, as they too could see decisions challenged or have issues with the balance of power.

Worst or best case scenario, we may not achieve same-sex marriage for yet another year, only to have to go through all the public homophobia and bigotry again.